Safer Child Products

Drowning is the one of the most frequent causes of death in young children. Teaching a toddler to swim does not necessarily solve the problem, because they do not know enough to stay away from or be afraid of the water.  According the American Academy of Pediatrics,  “Children are not developmentally ready for swimming lessons until after their 4^th birthday.” Children under age 4 may not truly comprehend how to stay safe in and around water. http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;105/4/868

Though there are many water acclimation and pre-swimming classes offered, I found an interesting program that appears to offer what others do not.  I have not tried this program with my kids, as they are past this age group now.  However, I have read their brochures and looked at their website www.infantswim.com .  This program is called ISR or Infant Swimming Resource.  What stood out to me was that they claim to be teaching 1:1 developmentally appropriate survival skills.  ISR recommends that you participate in these 1:1 lessons 10 minutes a day, 5 days/week, for 4-6 weeks.  For example, for children 6-12 mos old, they teach the child to hold their breath under water and to roll over onto their backs and wait to be rescued.  Along with instruction for the child, comes education for the parents as well.

I really liked that they include instruction when fully clothed, because “86% of children who fall into the pool are fully clothed.”  Even with all this, ISR still acknowledges that supervision is the key to safety and that swim lessons do NOT prevent drowning.

Never leave a child alone near a pool or any water, including bathtubs and buckets.  A child can drown in as little as 1 inch of water.  Loss of Consciousness happens 2 minutes after submersion, and permanent brain damage occurs within 4-6 minutes.

Be sure to put away all toys and flotation devices (from bathtub too) when you are done, so a young child does not yearn to reach over to get something in the pool, or bath, and risk falling in.

Let’s keep all our children safe!

Safer Child Products

Many parents look for options to give their babies and young children and opt for Juice. Is this wise?  Fruit Juice has a lot of sugar in it and the AAP says there is no nutritional benefit to babies less than 6 months of age.  As stated in http://kidshealth.org/parent/question/infants/babies_juice.html drinking too much juice can contribute to cavities, diarrhea, and obesity.

If you choose to give your baby juice, make sure it is 100% juice and limit their intake to about 4 oz. per day.  Even children aged 1-6 years should be limited to 4-6 oz. of juice per day.

Do not give your baby water.  According to Dr. Stephen R. Daniels, "Water can interfere with a young baby's ability to absorb the nutrients in breast milk or formula and, because it can make her feel full, it may prevent her from feeding as much as she should.

Giving water to an infant can also cause water intoxication, a serious condition that happens when too much water dilutes the concentration of sodium in the body, upsetting the electrolyte balance and causing tissues to swell. It's uncommon but serious, potentially causing seizures and even a coma."

So, stick to breast milk or formula for your infants, and if you have any questions or concerns, contact your child's doctor.  

Safer Child Products

My 8 y/o tends to be very moody and at times irritable at home, whereas at school she is a smiling joy!  As my husband and I tried to figure out what are we doing wrong, or differently than at school, one of the things we decided to try was getting her to bed earlier.  Being the younger sibling, it is difficult because she wants to stay up to watch TV with her sister, or just doesn’t want to go up because her sister doesn’t have to.  In my ideal world she would be asleep by 9pm and awake at 7am.  However in my reality, she’s been going to sleep closer to 9:30 or 10:00 and I can’t get her up at 7.  It got me thinking, how much sleep do children really need?  I know that even I need my 8 hours of sleep to be at my best.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, school aged children need 10 to 11 hours of sleep, whereas preschool aged children need more like 11-13 hours.  What’s interesting is that I can’t find much scientific evidence on how much sleep children require, but there does seem to be a trend of the recommendations decreasing as well as the amount of actual sleep.  As cited in an article in USA Today “children's daily sleep decreased about 75 minutes, while the recommendations for how much sleep children should get declined by 70 minutes. As the numbers keep pace, "experts have always recommended that children get about 40 minutes more sleep than they do, no matter how much sleep they get,"

Insufficient sleep can lead to difficulty paying attention in school, accidents and injuries, as well as obesity.  To read the rest of the article go to http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/story/2012-02-13/No-science-just-expert-guesses-on-how-much-sleep-kids-need/53065594/1

In addition, http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/sleep.html# can give you guidelines on sleep for children of all ages.  

Safer Child Products

Recently at Basketball practice, my daughter fell and scraped her knees; Better than getting a concussion for sure.  Then I was preparing food with a friend and she cut her finger.  My daughter seemed to have a reaction yesterday to some fruit she was eating, for the first time in 11 years!  

Before we know it spring will be here and there will be many more scrapes and bruises from outdoor play.  Do you keep a First Aid Kit with you?  Perhaps you should.  I always have Band-Aids in my purse, but I’ve often thought about how I could be better prepared for emergencies while we are on the go.  

When we are out and about, we are not always near running water and soap, so I try to   keep antibacterial hand gel in my purse and in my car.  However, that is not what I would use for cleaning a scrape.  I think I’ll put antiseptic wipes on the list.  And after the food reaction yesterday, I realized that I should keep anti-histamines on me too.  I never have something to help headaches when I need it, so perhaps I should include that.  I believe we have CPR masks in our cars, but would I have the courage to use it if I needed to?  I hope so; definitely include that in the kit, as well as rubber gloves.  But Band-Aids alone only do half the job.  We need to keep antibiotic ointment on hand for those scrapes and scratches as well. What else should we pack in our First Aid Kits?  How about Tweezers?  These come in handy when trying to remove a splinter or ticks. 

 For a more comprehensive list and more emergency preparedness go to http://pediatrics.about.com/od/firstaid/a/05_firstaid_kit.htm